


balance sundered

by jillyfae



Series: Blood and Lyrium [9]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Blood Magic, F/M, Ficlet Collection, Inquisitor Hawke, Lyrium Addiction, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Violence, Recovering Blood Mage, Recovering Lyrium Addict, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-17
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-18 09:14:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 9,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12385242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jillyfae/pseuds/jillyfae
Summary: The ultimate second chance: Theia Hawke walks out of the Breach and becomes somethingmorethan Champion; Cullen learns he was always more than just a Templar.*The ficlets here arenotposted in any sort of internal chronology, but as they were written/edited/etc.





	1. Cullen

**Author's Note:**

> Here, I decree  
> Opposition in all things:  
> For earth, sky  
> For winter, summer  
> For darkness, light.  
> By My will alone is balance sundered  
> And the world given new life.  
> 
>
>> \-- The Chant of Light, Canticle of Threnodies 5:5

Her dress is pink, soft and sweet as dusk, and her steps are smooth and silent, her smile small, her head tilted  _just so_  as she greets one noble after another.

He is reminded of his second trip over the Waking Sea, when they passed near the wreck of a battle between the Armada and a Tevinter smuggler, broken casks and bodies, and the fins, slow and smooth and graceful, never bumping against anything, drifting, quiet, until you forgot the danger, just watched the slightest shift in the water around them, peaceful. But then  _teeth_  and  _blood_  and his fingers had dug deep into the railing as he watched them feed, a splinter caught beneath his nail, the breath in his throat gone painfully cold and thin.

He’s not sure how everyone else can be so blind, can smile as they watch her walk among them, cannot tell that she is hunting, that she carries their deaths in her eyes.

He’s not sure why that makes him want to smile.


	2. Cullen

he dreams about her

it’s the first time, he thinks, he might begin to understand what other people mean by dreams

or the first time in ten years, at least

he can’t really remember who he  _was,_ before.

before Uldred, too long ago, too hard a break between before and after

sometimes he wonders what the boy he was would think of the man he is

_I’m sorry,_  he whispers to the boy in his dreams,  _sorry, sorry,_  until it’s all he can think, all he can hear

the whispers grow and he apologizes more, to everyone, for everything and anything and the scouts and trainers give him funny looks when he says he’s sorry as they hand him their reports

it’s hard to stop

so sorry

_always sorry_

until at last he hates himself too much to be sorry, too much to bother with apologies. most people relax around him then, thinking he’s  _better_

She never does. She frowns. 

She teases.

not like normal people tease (Hawke is never normal)

she does that  _thing_ with her lips instead, just barely parted, a shine of some sort of gloss making them look like she just licked them, every moment, all day long, until he finds himself staring at her, remembering the feel of those lips around his cock, the smear of pink they leave on his skin, and Leliana and Josephine stop talking and it’s  _silent …_ who knows how long before he notices, and he looks at them and they smile, a sharp edge in Leliana’s eyes and a soft laugh in Josephine’s breath, and he sighs,  _he is such an idiot._

Hawke just widens her eyes when he looks at her, as if she has  _no idea_  what could possibly be bothering him.

It works though. 

he’s too busy trying to decide if he wants to avoid her or fuck her to worry about what a mess he is by himself, and maybe he even remembers how to breathe properly again, for a little while, without his heart burning in his chest to remind of all his regrets

_lies, lies_

_he always regrets_

_he always wants to fuck her_

he’s just usually sure he shouldn’t

probably?

they’re sitting on the battlements one night, having finished a lovely late dinner, mushroom stew and toasted goat cheese, and they were talking about the sorts of things they used to eat on the annums, decades ago,  _(Maker, our bones are old_ ), surrounded by the rolling hills of Ferelden farmland, and she mentions Carver’s Mabari, Cafall, and she smiles, something sad but open, her face still and honest in a way he rarely sees,  _has anyone else ever seen her honest at all?_  he wants to feel the beat of her pulse in her neck beneath his palm, and cannot for the life of him remember why he shouldn’t reach out to kiss her

but she sees something in his face, and there’s a shadow in her eyes, just a glimpse, before her mouth twists and her smile sharpens and her back curves, offering her body up for his perusal, and it’s a bargain now, a trade, power for power, or secrets, or lies, comfort offered as a transaction in a ledger, and he closes his eyes on the bitter burn in the back of his throat

That’s why.


	3. Theia

she wants, she wants she doesn’t know

it’s different than lust (not that she is as lustful as she pretends) but she knows

Isabela knew

Merrill didn’t, but she lusted after Merrill, body and soul and secrets, so why would she think?

this isn’t that  
it hurts more  
and less

it is almost soft, and for all she knows how to be soft with her body, she is not sure she can say the same about her head, her heart

soft is not the same as weak, as fragile, and yet it feels, at any moment, like it will break, and break her, and it will all be over. she cannot let it be over. she cannot fail. not again

_not again_

she cannot bear to think she might break him too, not him, not after everything he has survived. she thinks herself so selfish a breath later, so arrogant,  _as if I could break him, how cruel, to dismiss all he is, all he has been, to think I could hurt him, not him, he is not weak_

not like she is

too many people, too many lives, too much history  _she has killed them all_

_she can’t_

_not this time_

why is she the one standing here?  _why me, why, why_

they know what happened last time it was all left to her

Kirkwall bowed and she broke it under her heel and her …

_no not family, never family, family dies_

they killed her to save the world

and now they gave her the world anyways

she will break it, has broken, will always break it

breaks everything she loves

she loved Malcolm, and Bethany, and Carver, and Cafall, and Leandra

they died, all dead, her fault, her failure

Did she love Isabela, or were they too honest with each other to dare it, to risk sharp edges and each other’s heart’s blood?

Isabela survives.

Isabela always survives.

Did she love Merrill, or was it only desire? Did she love Anders and Fenris and Varric and Sebastian, friends as close as family?

_look what I do to my family, must not ask for that, must not let them, much better they kill me_

Aveline, always Aveline, the only one strong enough to walk away

Cullen, too strong to walk away, not again

_not again_

oh Roderick,  _you bastard, you were right_ , he is hers, and she is sorry. she cannot bear to give him up, but she cannot let him break

_I would not survive_

_not again_

Instead they balance, endless, hopeless, neither one thing nor another, no truths, no lies, close enough to feel his breath, never close enough to touch

but sometimes, sometimes, at the barest hint of dawn, she lets herself dream


	4. Cullen

He’s not sure which is worse.

When she’s there, a tease a torment a wish, that sly half smile of hers promising everything and nothing to anyone brave enough to meet her eyes…

Or when she’s not, and the air is too cold and despite experience he finds himself prone to worry, fretting at his quills until he’s leaving bits of feather of all over his desk and he has to go find someone to spar with, the hard hit of sword and shield, the burn of muscles enough to let him rest, though never quite enough to quiet the whispers.

Nothing quiets the whispers

Except her.

Varric would be horrified, the thought that Hawke could ever quiet anyone.

It’s certainly not a comfortable quiet, too full of shifting meanings and heat. Always heat.

He is not surprised a blizzard could not kill her.

He is almost surprised the world dares to snow on her at all.


	5. Cullen

There must have been a moment

somewhere, somewhen, a moment in his life, after Kirkwall, before the Conclave, when he was working, but not desperate, when he should have …  _gotten out more_  … done something, anything, a chance, given himself a break, some relief, some  _fun_

maybe then he’d be able to dream of something else besides the taste of her, the  _sound_ , the clench of her body and the weight of her breasts against his chest

the sweet sad curve of her smile when she didn’t kiss him good-bye

the rare soft laugh caught in some impossible moment in between, almost dawn or dusk, not quite dark, soft and shifting and secret

he dares not remember the one time she slept beside him

the one time they had woken up together

the one time their nightmares overlapped, both of them confused and awkward in the cold dark ‘marks before morning

_she’d leant against him, fingers clenched around the fabric of his shirt, let her head turn in against his shoulder_

no, no, he could not ever let himself remember

not the words of the lullaby he’d hummed, that they’d sung together, soft and shifting and hesitant, 'til the rough lift of her voice caused the tears to choke in his throat, and he’d had to stop

he’d felt the shake of her head against him, had had to close his eyes when her hands let go, had swallowed, had felt his body sag as she moved away from his side

he’d  _tried,_  eyes opening and throat empty, despite all his desire to say … something, anything, and his hands reached out, but it was too late,  _always too late,_  and she’d slipped out the door, refusing the touch of comfort he’d so desperately tried to offer

she never let him offer anything

maybe, maybe, if anything in his life could cause a twist in his chest like the one he felt every time he met her eyes,  _every time she looked away,_  maybe then he’d have some way to combat the memory of her body against his, the way she always offered,  _served herself up, scapegoat and savior, as if that was all she was, all she ever could be, she was wrong, so wrong, but he could never turn away, never tell her, a tremble in his fingers at the soft promise of her skin_

she always offered, never took, as if she knew how badly he needed to choose

he wished she’d grant herself the same courtesy, he wanted her, he wanted her to choose, he wanted her to choose for  _herself,_  but oh

how he wished that meant she’d choose  _him_

he wasn’t sure she knew how, wasn’t sure if she wanted to know, wanted to choose,  _wanted …_  wasn’t sure if she wanted at all

even if she did, he certainly didn’t know how to ask


	6. Theia

She used to love a good party. 

But that was Kirkwall, when she knew the players, knew the rules, knew  _precisely_  how to make the impression she wanted.

For all it was its own City-State, for all Marcher politics were a tangle of debts and favors, profit and loss, coin and faith and shipping, the Free Marches were still, in a way,  _family._

The most complicated family tree she’d ever seen, but still. They’d squabble amongst themselves, but if anyone  _else_  tried to pick a fight with one of them, they’d have to face all of them; everyone knew it, even Orlais.

She’d been  _a Marcher,_  when she played the game in Kirkwall; Ferelden mud on Amell boots, perhaps, but. Still part of the family.

She’d have no such benefit in Halamshiral.

Compared to the Imperial Game, Kirkwall’s game wasn’t even worth the cost of her new shoes.

They were very nice shoes.

Antivan leather and Rivaini silk and Orlesian heels.

They made the perfect, lightest, clearest, double-click when she walked.

It was a shame her gown was so long; no one would be able to get a proper look at them.

Unless they got under her skirts.

That might be fun.

Hawke felt the barest smile try to curve her lips.

Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad?

One couldn’t go too terribly wrong, with music and food as exquisite as the best the Imperial Court could provide.

Plus Vivienne, moving smoothly in her element.

(Vivienne, and the gown she refused to let Hawke see ahead of time. She felt quite likely to die of anticipation at least a sennight before the Ball. Vivienne just smiled, whenever she tried to steal a glimpse.)

Her advisors, forced into formal wear, and not a clipboard or bird or chess piece allowed.

Would they find a jacket large enough for The Iron Bull? Would they get Cole out of his  _hat?_  Cassandra and Blackwall, fingers twitching without sword and shield, Sera trying to keep her mouth shut, and oh,  _oh,_ what could a single proper Orlesian think to say about Dorian and Solas, Tevinter and Elf and  _apostates,_  by any civilized reckoning.

Never mind what they thought and didn’t dare say regarding their so-called Champion and Herald and Inquisitor.

Varric, surrounded by his  _fans._

Hawke almost coughed, trying not to laugh, before she remembered she was alone, no one to catch her, and let her smile free.

It really ought to be a spectacular party.

They might even survive. 

The Summer Palace might not.


	7. Theia

Duchess Arabelle de Chastain was the one she needed.

Terribly easy to identify.

Just another insult on top of all the rest, that she hadn’t even bothered to make it  _difficult._  No attempt to blend into any other groups of nobles, no direct contact with anyone in the Inquisition beyond the most poisonous of polite nods, no pretend camaraderie with the courtiers that washed up against her silk skirts, ducking their heads to pass along their reports before being sent out again to do her bidding.

She had the most expensive dress, elegant and clean, the most deceptively simple mask, a tiara with only one tier, a single flawless string of pearls.

Old money, old power, old arrogance.

Hawke smiled.

She would think herself invulnerable.

She would never expect a sharp blade at her gut.

Metaphorically speaking.

Mostly.

Cullen would hate her plan. Josephine might be horrified.

Vivienne though …

Vivienne knew how to play the Game, of course, and there were cleaner ways to achieve their goals, softer methods.

Slower, though, and sometimes speed was important.

Sometimes fear was necessary.

There was too much to lose, if they couldn’t get the Court under control tonight.

Madame de Fer would understand. She might not  _approve_ , but she would understand. Hopefully she would not be too disappointed by the necessary … vulgarity.

Hopefully Leliana would understand, as well. Hawke never was sure where Leliana drew her own lines.

She should warn her first, in case Leliana had already started a counter of her own.

“We don’t have the luxury of letting them think they can toy with us.”

It was a short warning, a sharp smile as Hawke passed her Spymistress a new drink, shifted her fingers so as not to let her own spill.

Leliana didn’t quite still, didn’t shift in any way that could be noticed, unless you were looking at her eyes.

Hawke made a point of always looking her in the eyes.

“No bloodshed.” Leliana took a sip, a smile of her own curling against the rim of her crystal goblet. It was no softer than Hawke’s. “Not yet. Not her.”

“Of course not.” Hawke tilted her head, almost a nod, felt her smile tighten.

There were reasons for this option, but she would enjoy it, for Cullen’s sake as well as her own, more than was probably wise.

Hawke had never been foolish enough to consider herself wise.

Leliana clicked her tongue, and her smile shifted, honest and sad and a little wicked, all at once. “Maybe a little blood.”

Hawke swallowed a chuckle.

Leliana understood.

She always did.

* * *

The Duchess’ “Court” was easy enough to disperse, tasty rumors, implied assignations, and one young man who met Hawke’s eyes, and smiled, something as sharp and brittle as any of her own, and wished her luck before slipping away, almost as good at finding the shadows as Cole.

Probably an affinity born in the same sorts of pains, and Hawke considered, perhaps, the scent of blood in the air, the pressure of it beneath her skin, the ache of its possibilities, the scream in the back of her thoughts.

But no.

She’d promised.

She lifted her chin, and swallowed the burn down her throat, and pretended she couldn’t still hear the rhythm of all the hearts beating around her.

_It would be so easy, just a little nudge …_

“Why, Lady Amell,” Arabelle’s voice was sweet and light, like cyanide mixed into a trifle. “Or, wait, is it Herald? Champion? Inquisitor?” She shrugged, a graceful shift of lace across her shoulders, light catching on the gold in her hair, making her shine. “You’ve had so many names, I’m not quite sure which …”

She let her words trail off, as if any Orlesian wouldn’t know the appropriate greeting based on their mutual ranks and relationships by the time they were five, as if by choosing Hawke’s mother’s title she wasn’t clearly emphasizing Hawke’s lower status, an offshoot of some mongrel Marcher House.

“Why, it’s very simple Serah Arabelle,” Hawke leaned back on her heels, let the Ferelden mud thicken her voice as Arabelle’s spine stiffened, perfectly aware of Marcher customs, for all she disdained them. Her mouth opened, assuredly some cutting response to Hawke’s claim of superiority of rank with the informal title, but Hawke didn’t let her speak. “You will show proper respect to every single member of the Inquisition, or I shall take your tongue, and send it to de Lydes with my apologies for any possible … complications it might create for your betrothal negotiations.”

“ _Sauvage,_ ” Arabelle breathed, eyes wide, fingers curling tightly enough to wrinkle her gloves. “You would dare - ”

“I do not have the patience to deal with your petty machinations, my dear.”

Arabelle’s lip twitched, her shoulders too stiff, as if she was holding her breath, as if only now remembering that she was playing her games with mages and assassins, with Madame de Fer and the Left Hand of the Divine, and maybe, just maybe,  _some of the stories out of Kirkwall were true._

“If you’re going to flaunt your position at the center of a web, you should be prepared for the attention it brings, should you not?”

Arabelle’s chin pulled back, her voice falling, too soft, too low. “I am not, that is-”

“No.” Hawke cut her off, felt her nostrils flare with the strength of the breath needed to hold herself still. “It is too late for an apology.”

“What is it you think you are owed?” Arabelle stepped forward, voice lifting, steady again, clearly offended at the very  _idea_  that she’d been considering anything that could be misinterpreted as regret. “You have been invited to the Summer Palace, granted an audience with our Empress, and you repay these honors by threatening a noblewoman of the Realm? I don’t know how you run your …  _Skyhold,_  but we are civilized here.”

Hawke laughed.

Arabelle’s eyes narrowed, though her fingers had relaxed, dress and gloves and mask all perfectly balanced again.

“You really believe your own propaganda, don’t you, Arabelle?”

It was fascinating, watching a woman take such a deep breath her bodice’s seams shifted, her mask lifting up on her face with the sheer scope of her outrage.

“You have orchestrated a quite brilliant combination of harassment and neglect, just the right gossips here, misdirecting the servants there, mobbing our Commander and avoiding our Enchantress, and it would be easy enough to dismantle, to shift Giroux to the West Hall and Lavigne to the Courtyard and herd the Vauclains over to the Hall of Heroes where our Warden can glare at them ‘til they stop giggling,” Arabelle’s hand lifted, dropped, the line of her neck gone pale at the quick list of just the right names, “but, my dear Duchess, I do. Not. Have.Time.”

She could practically taste the woman’s blood on her tongue, had moved in so close she could feel the heat of it, begging to be used,  _so close, so close._ She resisted the rhythm, the way it sped up under Arabelle’s soft skin, but could not stop herself from leaning even closer, her breath brushing against the edge of Arabelle’s mask, a whisper against her ear. “Clean up your own mess, or I will make one worse than anything you could imagine, and leave you  _just_  alive enough to suffer through it.”

Arabelle  _squeaked,_  and it was quite the loveliest sound Hawke had heard all night. She swallowed the smile as she straightened her spine. “You have a 'mark. One more inappropriate proposition, one more lost drink or message, and I will be back.”

“But, how,” Arabelle’s voice cracked, because there was only one way, in that short a time; she’d have to  _ask for help,_  would have to let someone know she’d fumbled, and been caught.

Would have to let someone know she’d lost the Game.

Perhaps Hawke could be charitable, in victory.

“No longer my concern, Duchess.” Hawke gave a proper curtsy, a smooth dip, neither too shallow nor too deep,  _thank you, Vivienne,_ just enough to let the woman save face amongst those watching. “Unless you wish it to be?”

“No, Inquisitor.” She returned the gesture, bowing her head with at least an illusion of respect. “That will not be necessary.”

“I am glad to hear it.”

Hawke turned, and left, careful to head towards the Courtyard, the Halls, to check in with the wandering members of her Inquisition.

She could not risk returning to the Ballroom, not yet, not when she was still so angry.

Not when Arabelle might realize she was more upset about the Commander’s mob than anything else, and try to find a way to use it.

Not when Hawke wasn’t sure she wouldn’t just kill someone if she had to watch them ignore a demurral and press their suit again and  _again and again,_ refusing to give up the hunt.

Monsters.

_I could show them such horrors …_

But spilling their blood would solve nothing.

And would probably be especially upsetting to the person she was trying to protect, which made her about as good at being human as Cole.

Which basically meant not very at all, even when she meant well.

Cullen could take care of himself, after all, however much he disliked the Ball’s trappings.

She just wanted to … help.

Everyone could use a little help, now and then.


	8. Cullen

She is walking slowly, fingers trailing along the edges of his shelves, idly letting her weight shift, her eyes travel back and forth across sheaves of paper and spines of books and … what is that, a black knight? He’s not even sure why there’s a black knight on that shelf.

She’s humming, something soft and light. 

Her nonchalance is not comforting.

He waits.

“Are you still  _my_  templar?”

His eyes close. It is that or let the sharp edge of the pain of that soft, sweet question escape in some way that she’d hear. He’s not sure why he can’t let her know how much that hurts, but he knows,  _he knows,_  he is always  _hers,_  she is his  _heart,_  and why must she ask him this again?

But he swallows, and tries to keep his own voice as light as hers. He fails, but it is not so rough as to make his thoughts obvious.

He hopes.

“Am I what?”

She clicks her tongue. He is perhaps even less successful than he’d hoped. “My templar? Can you still stop me, before I go too far again?”

He feels his fingers ache, they wish to curl into fists; he wants to yell at her, for such a question.

He swallows again, though his voice is deeper when he speaks, strange and thick despite his efforts. “You don’t need me for that. You don’t need anyone for that.”

“Don’t I?” She turns at last, and she’s smiling, and oh, it hurts, that smile, clear and bright and false. “You’re the one who doesn’t need me, not anymore.”

“Inquisitor,” he knows that’s the wrong answer even as she clicks her tongue again, and shakes his head, her forsaken smile never fading. 

“Not like you did before,” and there at last, the smile is gone, a glint of something honest in her eyes, dark and shadowed. “Not like before, to hide the cracks between what you did and what you thought and what you wanted …”

Her voice trails off, and she’s stopped moving, just standing there, somehow faded and pale against the shelves, the same soft brown as the wood surrounding her.

He wants to step closer, wants to take her hand,  _just wants._  He always wants, now. He is comfortable with that. Or used to it. One can become used to anything. He is not  _just_  used to her. “Maybe I need you more now, more because I  _can_  want this time, can choose.”

She ducks her head, turns half away, voice dull and almost muffled now that he cannot see her eyes. “That’s a terrible choice, I thought you were smarter than that.”

He barks something that is surprisingly close to a laugh. “What does any of this have to do with being smart?”

He can just hear the weight of her sigh, can see the shift of her shoulders. “You’ve changed, you know?” She turns, and there’s half a smile on her face again, but it’s different now, it’s her face, her smile, not a mask. “Softer, somehow. Stronger. Less … brittle.” She steps closer, at last, and his shoulders stiffen to keep him in place. “That knot, in there,” she lifts a hand, pauses, close enough to touch his chest as her fingers reach out, but she doesn’t,  _she doesn’t,_  and it hurts, that small bare space between them, “that knot that drove you towards me, that needed release before it twisted so tight it tore something … it’s gone.”

"Theia,” he whispers, and her eyes close, and he can see her swallow and he aches because he’s not sure he could stop her, he’s not sure he’d want to, though he knows they’d both regret it if she lost herself and he didn’t.

And perhaps that’s enough to remind him of the cost, of everything, as if he of all people needed reminding.

He does not think she needs reminding either, does not think she will need to be stopped.

But he understands the need to be sure.

He waits until her eyes open.

He nods.

_Yes, still, forever. No matter what comes._

Her breath flees, too fast for anything like comfort, and something twists in his throat when she smiles, small and trembling.

Hawke is not supposed to tremble.

It is a gift, that Theia lets him see her.

It is not quite gratitude that makes it hard to breathe.

“I can hear it, still, you know.” Her shoulders curve, something tentative in the lift of her hands, and something behind his eyes burns at the sight, but he waits, waits for her to finish. “Your heart beat, your blood,  _the rhythm_ ,” she finally touches him, palm flat against his chest, the heat in his eyes pricks deeper, and he lays his hand across hers; her fingers are too cold, his shift to rub against them, to will them warmer.

To will her warmer.

“I would know.” She meets his eyes again, pale and blue but warm, for once, no fire burning, no ice chilling, just warm and open and calm. “If you, I mean. It’s different, with lyrium, darker and thicker, and. Even if it was just a taste, just once. I’d know.”

He curls his fingers around hers, lifts them just enough to drop a light kiss against her knuckles,  _thank you, my guardian, my guide,_  and watches her face, soft and still, watches her eyes, so bright, so clear, watches her smile widen, small but there, still there,  _just for him._

He lets her hand go, is sure he has a smile of his own,  _for you, just you._

Her smile firms, lifts up further on one side than the other, her weight shifting to emphasize the curve of hip, of breast, and his breath catches for an entirely different reason, as she is Hawke again, bold and terrifying, and his mantle is too heavy and he is hot and afraid he might be blushing and she hasn’t even done anything (yet) but stand there.

It’s not fair, what the woman can do with a smile. 


	9. Cullen

He heard himself ask, as if it was  _easy,_  a dance with her, with Hawke,  _with Theia,_  half a bow and his hand reached out -

And she froze, staring at his face, her own hand motionless by her side.

 _No,_  that wasn’t quite true, her quiet not absolute. The hand resting against the balcony railing wasn’t still, her fingers curling in until the fabric of her glove stretched across her knuckles, the edges of her mouth tucked in tight, cheeks taut as if she was holding in something too sharp, too dark to speak aloud.

He waited, the sound of the music inside pouring out across them, clear and bright and so very far away.

Finally, her shoulders shifted, a lift of a breath taken, too deep perhaps, as her eyes closed and her face turned away, and no.

Not this time.

She might still leave, but he needed her to know.

He stepped closer, reached out, his hand beneath her chin, gently,  _gently,_ so she could slip away if she needed,  _she always gives me a way out, even when I don’t want it,_ lifting her face so he could see her again.

“You asked me to dance, not so many hours ago. And laughed at me, when I fumbled the answer. What changed?”

Her lips curled in, and for a breath he thought she’d leave, a swish of skirts and hair and pain, but no,  _no,_ her eyes opened, and maybe that was worse, pale and damp and wide, so wide, he would never be free of those eyes, if he let himself fall.

_I fell a long time ago._

Her mouth quirked, almost a smile, her eyes blinked, almost a smirk, though still he could feel the tremble of her breath through her chin, brushing against his glove.

He ached, somewhere between his hearbeats, at the thickness of the leather, at the thought of her breath against his skin, and he found himself standing even closer to her, thumb sliding up to rest against the side of her face, regretting leather still, that he could not feel the loose strands of her hair as his fingers curled across the nape of her neck.

The ache burned, sweet and sharp, as she leaned ever so slightly into the palm of his hand.

“That was for the Ball, Orlesians and Inquisition, a show for an audience. This…” Her shoulder lifted, half a shrug, her breath sighed out, almost louder than her voice had been, as cool as the shadows surrounding them.

“This?” He breathed out, watching the curve of her lips, the shadows cast by her lashes across the dusky pink of her tattoo, the soft bump of her nose against his the only thing reminding him not to kiss her, to take her mouth, her breath, every soft sound from her throat, to press their bodies together ‘til not even the music could find a way between them.

She shivered, and he could feel it through his chest.

“Are you afraid of a dance, Hawke?”

He’d hoped to watch an eyebrow lift, to see the challenge in the curve of her smile. Instead he forgot how to breathe in response to the soft whisper of her voice as her eyes closed again.

“ _Yes.”_

He kissed her, at last, a brief press of his lips against the smooth skin of her forehead, and she was warm, so warm beside him. “Since when have you let that stop you?”

She laughed, a stutter of breath against his cheek, and the sound was stark, bare and honest and more angry than joyful, but still he smiled, and he watched the lines beside her eyes deepen as she smiled back.

“Never.”

He stepped back then, ignoring the way the space between them twisted into something chill in his gut, and offered her his hand again.

“So determined,” her voice purred between them as she took his hand, and he was warm, so warm, down to the press of his toes in his boots. “I thought you didn’t dance?”

“I don’t put on a good show,” he couldn’t stop his smile widening at the feel of her hip beneath his hand, her fingers coming to rest against his shoulders, “but we’re not performing anymore, are we?”

“No, I suppose we’re not.”


	10. Theia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [for sept](http://faejilly.tumblr.com/post/131156498478)

_I love you._

She does not dare even think it, though she knows she gives it away when she forgets all her clever words and lets her shoulders ease as she sits beside him. 

He doesn’t ever say it. No, not yet.

Maybe never.

But she can see it, sometimes, a softness in his eyes and the edge of a smile hinted at by his lips.

Equally clear, sometimes, in wide blank stares, half fear, half desire, but still. That warmth, beneath it all, feeding them both.

She is not trustworthy.

He trusts her anyways.

Her eyes burn, but the only place safe enough to cry is on his shoulder, and even she is not that cruel.

But she cannot completely step away, even she is not that strong, and there is such comfort in the breadth of his palm, in the callouses on his skin catching against her own.

Which is how they find themselves, time and time again, backs pressed to the rough stone of the battlements, faces lifted to the expanse of sky, grey or blue or star-studded, fingers intertwined as their hands grip and hold in the space between them.


	11. Cullen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [inktober: haunted](http://faejilly.tumblr.com/post/166445062213)

She prowls. That’s the only word for it, the shift of her hips and the quick glances from her eyes, cataloging, classifying every fighter spread across the field, every crate of supplies, every clang of metal echoing from the blacksmith’s. It’s half terrifying and half comforting; he’s seen Hawke lash her tail before, he’s never seen her so out of sorts, she’s here again, things are so bad even she seems concerned… he swallows, and crosses his arms, and tries not to fidget.

“So, is he right?” She turns, too quick, too sharp, and Cullen blinks a moment before he realizes she’s talking to him and expects an answer.

“Is who what?”

“Roderick.”

“Seldom, I would imagine.” He sees the shift in her weight, the almost smile before her eyebrows rise and her face is sharp-edged again. He sighs. “Did you mean something in particular?”

Her mouth curves, almost cruel, but her eyes are too wide, still shifting too quickly. He’s caught again by how uncomfortable it is to realize that, on anyone else, he’d think that expression a hint of fear. She leans in, almost too close,  _she’s always been good at almost too everything,_  “are you really  _my_  templar?”

He tries to swallow, coughs instead, an awkward shiver of heat and cold chasing each other down his spine.

She pouts, and the heat wins out, he knows that face, she’s going to  _push,_  just a little, a little too much, give him the chance to try and push back, give him the chance to stumble instead. 

“Will you guide me, guard me, protect me,” the cloying hint of false innocence stumbles, there’s a shadow in her eyes he does not recognize, a vague uncertain shift between her fingers for a breath, her expression oddly blank and secret. She shakes her head, starts again, voice firmer, harder. The bitterness isn’t hiding, no sweet lies softening the words. “Are you supposed to stop me before I go too far?”

“Could I?” His voice is too spare, he doesn’t know how to say what he wants to say,  _you’ve died, you came back, miracle, Herald, hope…_ “You’ve been killed before.”

She clicks her tongue, curves her lips, her charm firmly back in place. “I know what happened last time. It won’t happen again.”

“What–” He’s afraid to ask, afraid not to ask.  _What happened Hawke, how are you here, how are you still you, how are you so changed, so much the same._  Sometimes his eyes burn when she’s talking, too afraid to close his eyes when he hears her voice, afraid he’ll open them and see Kirkwall’s stones rather than Haven’s snow. 

She shrugs, a flick of her fingers dismissing his question, and she’s hiding still, again,  _always lying,_  and it’s a relief to feel angry again, angry at her and all her powers, her terrible drive to survive, to save even as she destroys everyone around her. “That’s good to know, Hawke, thank you.”

She blinks, and he ignores the burn in his throat, the hint of surprise in the lift of her chin, the soft catch in her breath that in anyone else he’d think regret.

Hawke never regretted a damn thing.

He shakes his head. “If you are still who and what you used to be, I’m glad to know that when I stop you, you’ll stay down.”

Her eyes close, and something small and tight in his chest hurts at the way her shoulders ease. It can’t be relief. She nods, and turns, and he almost reaches out, almost apologizes, almost asks…

He doesn’t know what to ask. 

He watches her leave.


	12. Cullen

He can’t remember what they were talking about, what they were saying, pretending they weren’t arguing,  _oh they were arguing,_  but now she is close, so close, her mouth is near enough he can feel her breath against his lips, and he wants to kiss her so much he can’t even feel the burn of his blood, the hollow ache between his ribs that isn’t being filled by lyrium.

_who needs lyrium, never, ever, give me her_

He doesn’t remember reaching out but his fingers find her hips, rest against warm curves. Her tongue moves, a flick against his scar,  _a burn, he burns, his whole soul burns,_  and his eyes close, and his fingers dig in, pull her closer until she is pressed against his body, so tight he can feel the groan in her chest and he’s kissing her,  _Maker’s Breath, her lips,_  her lips are scalding hot, his tongue in her mouth and he wants to be inside her, he can’t remember why he thought he was angry, what they were saying, forgotten, whispers lost to the fog that is everything except her, her, right now, here, and he wishes she still wore skirts and robes like she’d done in Kirkwall, he could have his fingers inside her now, could listen to the way her breath catches, could watch the way her chin lifts and her shoulders roll back, could chase the roll of her hips and the barest glint left of the blue of her eyes as her lashes descend.

Instead he presses his hand between them, shifting ‘til his knuckles line up where he wants them, and she grunts, and pushes back against his hand, and his cock throbs and he nips her neck and she laughs, low and breathy, and her hands are on his belt and he’s trying to find the ties to her leggings and “ _Maker’s Balls,_ ” he swears against the skin of her shoulder, and her hands pull on his hair,  _back, back,_  and he can’t breathe, he needs, he wants, he –

She kisses him, holding his face between her palms, and her lips move slowly, and when he tries to press harder her fingers dig in and she shifts her mouth away, and breathes, slow and heavy, and he takes a breath just after, then again,  _again,_  until they sigh together, and he finds her mouth, softly this time, and his head is spinning and her hair is soft and smells sweet and dark and he never, ever, wants to stop.

_oh_

_I am such an idiot._

She pulls away, still sweet, still slow, and if he kisses her again he will say something stupid. If he lifts his head … she’ll see. Something. He’s not sure what, but his face is doing something he can’t control, and she always notices everything.

He ducks his head down, kisses the edge of her ear, her jaw, her neck, the curve of her shoulder, the smooth stretch beneath her collarbone, just barely past the loose collar of her blouse.

She laughs again, though it’s different than what he’s heard before, light almost, soft and uneven.

It hurts, sweet and bitter, that there is nothing he wants more than to hear her laugh like that again.

“We keep agreeing we’re not doing this,” her voice is still light, though steadier than that quiet laugh.

“We are terrible at not doing this,” his head is still tucked close, and he sees the shiver travel across her neck as his breath moves across her skin.

He wants to bite. Just a little, just to feel the heat of her skin in his mouth.

Her hands are on his shoulders, and she pushes, and he lets her, steps back, aches with the hope that his face is full enough of lust and chagrin to hide whatever else he is feeling at the loss of her skin so close to his own.

“Does that mean you’ve changed your mind, lover?” She smiles, but it’s the sharp one, the one full of heat and debts, the one that twists and turns and somehow draws in everyone he knows, following her on the strength of their own desires, thinking that they are hers.

He wants, as much as ever he has craved lyrium, to know what she might desire for herself.

“Have you?”  _Am I more than just a distraction from the pain in your blood?_  “It does neither of us any good to replace an old addiction with a new obsession.”

_I don’t just want to come to you when the lyrium sings._

“What makes you think I’d let you?” Her voice lifts, her body too close; they neither of them have bothered to straighten hair or clothes. The ties on her hips sway as she moves, his belt slaps against his thigh.

“What makes you think you could resist?” His voice drops with the words, he can feel them catch and rumble in his throat. An eyebrow lifts, but he can’t tell if it’s appreciation, or if she is, for once, kind enough to try not to laugh at him.

He thinks he sees her swallow, lets himself hope it was appreciation.

“I’ve never had any trouble before.” Her smile twists, wry and teasing, and he can feel his heart again, too fast in his chest.

He leans in,  _she’s always close enough, but never moves in until I do, someday, somehow, please._  “Oh, I’ve never even started trying to tempt you.”

That gets both eyebrows up, and her lips part, and oh,  _yes,_  her eyes are smiling, and her breath catches, almost like it does when he starts to fuck her, and that sharp calculating twist is gone completely.

Her gaze drops as he reaches for his belt, and she watches as he tightens it back up, pulls his layers straight again, her focus steady, a heat he can feel against the backs of his hands, low in his gut, and it’s only when his arms fall still and straight by his side that she lifts her chin, lets her gaze settle back on his face.

He smiles, his chest too full, bright and open, to let him speak. He turns, and leaves, and imagines she watches him until the door closes behind him.


	13. Theia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [inktober prompt: defiance](http://faejilly.tumblr.com/post/166465320683)

“She cannot be trusted.” Cullen’s jaw is visibly clenched, tight enough she imagines she can hear his teeth grinding.

Cassandra sighs. “I don’t believe we have much choice.” Her voice is slow and her accent thick enough to highlight how uncomfortable she must be, for all she holds herself as straight and still as a lance. 

“She’s a maleficar!” Cullen’s voice lifts, much too high and strained to be at all what he wants it to sound like.

“Not anymore!” Theia smiles as brightly as she can when they both turn to look at her. She lifts the hand with the Mark inside it, ignores the sharp shock of  _not-pain_  that shivers down her arm, the aching Void of  _otherness_  right in the center of her palm as she wiggles her fingers. “Promise! By Andraste herself, if it’ll make you feel better.”

Cullen makes the most disparaging scoffing sort of noise Theia’s ever heard; she’d congratulate him, if it hadn’t been aimed at her. “Do you really expect us to believe that?”

“Isn’t that your  _job_?” Theia leans in, lets her voice drop ‘til it’s barely more than a whisper, pretends her breath isn’t caught in her throat, her chest isn’t aching, fire behind her eyes, a tremble barely held in tight beneath her gut. She thinks she’s convincing. She doesn’t remember how to hope. “To keep an eye on the poor mages rather than  _assuming guilt_?”

Cassandra stands, the loud scratch of her chair legs moving against the floor enough to interrupt Cullen before there’s more yelling. 

“She was also Champion of Kirkwall and is the only one with the ability to help deal with… that.” Cassandra lifts a hand to wave vaguely up and out towards the Breach.

“You can’t think that makes it alright to consort with a blood mage.”

Theia gasps, lets her smile  _warm_  as Cullen’s eyes narrow. “Oh, are you planning on  _consorting_?” His eyes close, and Cassandra’s hands shift wide, a half a strangled word caught in her throat. Theia smiles wider. “If you wanted to  _check for new scars,_  lover, all you had to do was ask.”

Cullen shakes his head, steps closer. Theia lets her breath out, a slow soft sigh. She can’t recall a single time he’d moved closer first; she offered, he took or refused, she gave or she teased, she left.  _He’s changing the steps of the dance._

She stops herself from thinking how much longer it’s been for him since they last “danced” than it has for her.

“But there are new ones, aren’t there?” His voice is softer now, calmer. He lifts his hand, his fingers almost brushing against her skin where the top line of her collar sometimes shifts enough to show a bit more of her neck.

The ragged white line she’s been pretending she can’t see.

She can only be grateful he hasn’t seen her without her blouse, can’t mention the rough outline of a hole in the hollow of her throat, the three uneven spots across her chest.

He leans in closer, and she suppresses a shiver at the warmth of his breath reaching her cheek. The one suspiciously tattoo-free. “Are any of your  _old_  scars still there, Hawke?”

_They’re not._

She doesn’t say it. Doesn’t know how to say it, doesn’t know how to ask, doesn’t know the how for  _anything,_  not anymore.

She swallows, lifts her chin ‘til their mouths are close enough to kiss. “Did you think I hadn’t noticed your new scar? It’s very dashing.” She purses her lips, blows against the scar, watches his nostrils flare.

He doesn’t retreat.

She smiles, drops her weight back and away. “Did you forget to use your shield and try to block a sword with your head? I’m sure it’s hard enough to have worked splendidly.”

Cullen sighs, but his shoulders have eased and one side of his mouth lifts in the slightest hint of a smile.”You’re still not trustworthy.”

“Certainly not.” 

“Now that  _that’s_  settled?” Cassandra asks. 

“I suppose.” Cullen shakes his head, but that almost smile is still there. “I have work to do. I… withdraw my concerns. For now.”

Theia tilts her head towards Cassandra, lets the rasp of her whisper carry. “That means he’s going to keep an eye on me.”

They  _both_  snort, almost completely in unison, and Theia swallows the urge to giggle. 

“Until later, Seeker.” Cullen nods, practically snaps his heels together, and turns, his cape a warm shift of dark fabric behind him as he goes.

Theia clicks her tongue. “He didn’t even say good-bye. He used to have much better manners.”

“Really?” Cassandra’s voice does not encourage further conversation.

Theia turns and sits on the edge of Cassandra’s desk just to watch her lips thin. “Varric told me he ended up here because you were looking for me, yes?”

“I suppose that is accurate.” Cassandra’s voice is wary. 

 _Smart enough not to trust me more than she has to. How novel._ “Did you never ask the Kni– I’m sorry,  _Commander_  Cullen about me?”

“I–” 

“Didn’t you know you should?” Theia leans closer, legs tucked up against the side of the desk for balance. “Everyone knew he was  _keeping an eye on me,_  hmm? Meredith’s orders, after the Arishok.”

Cassandra just shakes her head, and Theia sighs as she stands, and starts to walk away. She turns before she reaches the door. “His own initiative before that. Or maybe that was mine?”

Cassandra’s eyes narrow, and Theia waves, and smiles, and slips away.


	14. Cullen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [inktober prompt: sheltered](http://faejilly.tumblr.com/post/166602552693)
> 
> oh look, I'm going back towards the beginning of DAI. :D

They gave her her own house.

Nothing like the Amell Estate, of course, but nicer than anything he’d known of Lowtown, presumably sturdier and cleaner than her Uncle’s, all those years ago.

He wonders if Gamlen is still in Kirkwall.

_Maybe Samson would know -_

Not that he knows what has happened to Samson, to ask.

The wind shifts outside, a higher pitch, but there is no draught along the floor to tell him which way it is blowing now.

It is a solid little house.

No one else has a house to themselves.

Even now, he isn’t sure  _why_ , isn’t sure Cassandra would be able to give him a straight answer if he asks. Honor or precaution?  _Savior or doom?_

He knows which one he’d have guessed, four days ago, if anyone had told him their odd Fade-touched prisoner was  _Hawke,_ who could tangle up a man’s soul, hold it between her fingers until he smiled at her and begged for more even as she tore it to shreds.

But that was before she almost killed herself to close the Breach, and hadn’t brought anything else crumbling down with her.

That was before he saw her walking out to face the demons, eyes as pale as the snow, a shiver in her shoulders that he couldn’t interpret.

_She’s changed._

_Haven’t we all._

But she hasn’t, really. Doesn’t look a day older than the last time he’d seen her, the very morning Kirkwall came crashing down.

But she has, her tattoos gone. Well, the one on her face. He can’t see, hasn’t had a chance–

He winces away from that thought, from memories of skirts lifted, blouses spread wide open.

_Where have you been, Hawke?_

_Why are you here, now?_

_And why can’t I walk away?_

He’s not sure he can answer that any more than the hypothetical Cassandra in his thoughts. Is he a guard for their sleeping prisoner, or their injured savior? Is he guarding her from Haven, or Haven from her, or just desperate to know if he’s healed, beneath the weight of his armor, or if she’ll find some chink he thought he’d patched and make him bleed again?

Not literally, of course, she’s too smart for that, too wise to bring a Smite down upon her own head. Somehow always knew what final line  _not_  to cross.

Until she leapt across it laughing, of course, blood and fire and smoke and …

He closes his eyes.

He feels his lips thin as his frown deepens.

She’d been fighting with a staff.

Even against the Arishok,  _against what was left of Meredith,_  she hadn’t used a staff.

There’d been no blood on her fingers when she fell.

No fresh cuts, either, from what the apothecary had said. Battered and bruised, but no distinctive small slices.

And no visible cause for her second coma, the Mark quiet this time, unlike before.

Trusting her when she woke would be a mistake, the latest in a litany of stupid decisions he’d made over the years.

He wasn’t sure he could stop himself, even so.


	15. Cullen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [inktober: lost](http://faejilly.tumblr.com/post/166669438933)

Third time’s the charm. Isn’t that how the saying goes?

He tries not to think about his life, that he’s been there to watch the world end. More than once, more than twice. This is better than the first time. He’s free to move, to fight, to choose, no bright-lit-cage edging every thought, no burn between his eyes as reality shifts and warps and tries to convince him of the impossible.

Not that reality isn’t warping today, but at least it’s consistent in its green-edged horrors.

At least he’s not the only one who sees it.

This is better than the second time, no innocents turning on each other in a desperate bid for safety, too far gone to even wish for freedom, only survival. This time they’re all working together, fleeing together, clinging to each other as they run.

This time he’s saved some of them.

And there are no children.

Thank the Maker, better by far. No children this time. He is suddenly shocking glad of the cold, of the difficult location for this Conclave, that no one brought their family with them. Glad of the snow that kept so many away, no matter how much it makes his lungs ache to breathe it now.

Glad of his allies. He can hear Cassandra’s voice over the tumult, coming nearer.

He sends another of the wounded back towards Haven, towards safety, and turns to greet her.

She’s not alone.

He recognizes the woman beside her, recognizes the height of her, the way her hair moves in the wind, the line of her hips.

Maybe this is still the first time, and he’s still mad.

“Who are you?”  _The prisoner?_  Cullen hadn’t ever seen, couldn’t have, wouldn’t have… there’s no tattoo curling across her cheek, her brow… but oh, those eyes, so pale it hurts, the dark sweep of heavy lashes framing them. “You can’t be – you’re dead!”

“Disappointed?” Her voice seems to catch, and it is her voice, it is, he’d know that voice, he knows it, knows it like he knows the flare of her nostrils as she lifts her chin, arrogance and determination, but it’s different, now, the tone too thin, her eyes open just a little too wide, her mouth almost soft, almost sad.

He takes half a step forward, and her lips curl in tight, and her head almost shakes, and if he didn’t know better he’d think her eyes were shining with unshed tears.

Hawke wouldn’t cry over this.

Certainly not over him.

But Hawke’s  _dead._

Three years dead, and she took the Gallows down with her.

“They were still dredging rocks and bodies up out of the harbor when I left Kirkwall.”

She winces, and something burns his throat as he swallows, as he realizes she takes that as his answer, doesn’t know it’s a question.

_How are you alive?_

_What happened to you?_

He’d seen her laugh in the face of much more eloquent cruelty than his fumbled words over the years.

He can’t help the glance at Varric, feeling his own breath too ragged in his chest, his hands loose and empty and uneasy at his sides.

Varric just snorts, eyes shadowed, but his shrug is too long, uneven, unsure.

Varric without a smart comment is as impossible as a soft, sad, Hawke.

As impossible as the hole in the sky.


End file.
